It’s hard not to make comparisons. After all, the Syrian uprising drew its initial inspiration from Tunisia and Libya. The boys who graffitied ‘the people want the downfall of the regime’ 5 months ago in Der’aa had undoubtedly heard the phrase from television coverage of those two other more successful revolutions.

But the Syrian uprising will not end as easily as the Tunisian and Egyptian ones. The security apparatus has not, and will not, crumble in the face of mass civil disobedience, as in Tunisia. And the military certainly won’t discard decades of loyalty and back the opposition overnight as happened in Egypt. No, the Syrian awakening will more closely resemble Yemen. Months of protests and countless dead were not enough to oust the stubborn president. In the end it required a random and violent response. An RPG attack on the presidential motorcade, serious burn and shrapnel injuries, and Saleh is eventually forced to leave Yemeni territory for treatment in Saudi Arabia. He vowed to return after he recovered but is still moping around the Kingdom.

However, the Syrian opposition should not be encouraged by the Yemeni model. Instead it should be a warning. Despite widespread calls for his departure, Saleh clung on to power, resorting to brutal violence to quell the dissent. Even when thousands lined the streets of Sanaa and influential generals and tribal leaders declared their support for the protestors, the president stalled, promising to step down some time later.

If we had to compare Syria to another Arab country experiencing its own awakening, then Libya would be the closest example, which experienced a fissure in the military and a cleaving of the country in half. But even there the comparison falls short. There will be no dramatic climax, no mass defections. The military command – Alawites and Assad loyalists – will not be abandoning their leader any time soon. Instead, Syria will experience a gentle trickle of disaffected soldiers and officers, who are either sickened by the government’s brutal response or angered by orders to shoot their fellow soldiers. Civil war is a very real outcome for the Syrian uprising but the build up to it will not be fast or straightforward.